Monsters (2010)

A photo-journalist is tasked by his boss with escorting the boss's daughter back to safety in the US, a journey which involves traversing the infected zone, an area of the southern USA and northern Mexico inhabited by aliens who have begun to breed and spread following a crash-landing NASA probe. As they travel, they connect, encounter aliens, witness devastation and come face to face with death.

*****

Debut feature director Gareth Edwards handles scripting duties, cinematography, direction, production and SFX and considering all that he has taken on it is remarkable that any film at all emerges, let alone one with much to commend it. It is well-known that the budget was minuscule, that Edwards and his two (count them) cast actors filmed on the hoof with whatever backgrounds and locals they could find to play along and that the two principals were (and still are) a real life couple. The relationship that plays out between them is well played and develops with admirable naturalness, given the extraordinary back-drop. They connect over an evening's eating and drinking, share a night at the home of kind-hearted Mexicans, travel by boat together into the heart of the infected zone and spend a night atop an ancient pyramid. As they come to love one another, it feels organic, unforced and authentic.

The sights they see as they travel are extraordinary - a large boat half way up a tree, a rusting fighter jet lifted out of the water than dragged down by dark tentacles, bloody hand prints on the side of a stricken ship, pulsating electro-luminescent egg-sacks on the trunks of trees and then finally what is perceived to be an alien attack on a convoy of vehicles that shows just how powerful and dangerous these strange tentacled creatures really are. Edwards uses his money shots sparingly and this is surely of necessity, lacking the budget for War of the Worlds style set pieces. Nonetheless the film never feels cheap and he deliberately makes the film a road trip about a growing relationship in the context of an alien invasion, rather than an alien invasion film with a romantic sub-plot. There is not much to criticize about the acting, script or Edwards' ambitions - these are all relatively accomplished. What seems to be missing is a greater sense of pace - of propulsion for their journey. Despite the apparent danger posed to them by travelling through the infected zone, they rarely seem to feel any sense of peril. To an extent that may be Edwards' point, that the creatures are more benign than the US authorities would have them believe, but it does at times feel that the creatures could benefit from being foregrounded a little more. As convincingly rendered as the central relationship is, the film itself is at times sluggish and the emotional heft of some of what are clearly meant to be key scenes remain less affecting than intended. An abrupt conclusion is more frustrating than anything else and left me a little disengaged.

*****

Nowhere near the masterpiece many have hailed it as, but impressive in scale given the budget Edwards worked under. The core relationship is well played but excessively foregrounded amidst pacing issues. A promising debut by multi-tasker Edwards, but no without its flaws.